When we think of the Fells, we usually think of Jesse Fell, the founder of Illinois State Normal University and one of the first residents of what would be Normal, Illinois. He also was instrumental in bringing the Illinois Soldiers' Orphans Home to Normal after the Civil War. Or we think of Kersey Fell, an attorney and real estate developer in McLean County. But the wealth of the Fell family could not make life comfortable for every Fell.
Jesse had a brother, Thomas, who came to Bloomington and first worked as a wheelwright and carpenter. He later moved to Lexington where he farmed. He died in 1892 after suffering from poor health for about four years. Thomas had a daughter, Ellen Amanda, who married a man named George Dawson. Her sister, Mary, married Washington Dawson, who was George's brother. Amanda and George had seven children before divorcing sometime in the 1870s.
Perhaps the divorce was the reason Amanda ended up dying in the Illinois Soldiers' Orphans Home of a gastric fever in 1880. Perhaps the divorce was also the reason she gave up her youngest child in 1878. Perhaps her divorce was the reason her family failed to help her in her time of need. Her husband was obviously not supporting his children -- he lived in Lexington in a boarding house and worked as a painter. Amanda's father and mother were living a comfortable life in Lexington. Her uncles, Jesse and Kersey Fell were very comfortably off and influential people in Normal. Why did none of these family members take in Amanda when she was so extremely ill? Had divorce not only financially bankrupted her, but caused her to suffer a familial "bankruptcy" as well?
When Amanda gave up her daughter to the Oscar Brown family in Hoopeston she took extra measures to maintain a relationship with her daughter. Of all the adoptions that took place in McLean County in the 19th century, only Amanda Fell Dawson retained the rights of visitation with her daughter. Unfortunately, Amanda died just two years after giving up little three year old Ellen. A family history incorrectly stated that the Ellen was adopted after her mother's death, but the records in the probate court make it clear that Amanda was driven to give up her daughter due to extreme circumstances two years before her death.
Her children, Estella and Harry, were residents of the orphanage in 1880. Harry had a disease of the leg and died in 1891. At that time he still had a sister living in Bloomington and a large monument was erected for Harry and their mother in Evergreen Cemetery.
Amanda's children who could be traced lived in Dodge City, KS and Jacksonville, IL in the late 1800s.